Why (and how) opera continues to captivate us.

To delve into history is to witness the growth and evolution of humanity – for better or for worse. While values, settings and circumstances may change over time, the fundamental themes and struggles of the human condition remain the same. Opera is no different.

This accounts for why opera can speak to audiences across societies, continents and even centuries. In La Traviata, the main character’s struggle for love against the weight of societal expectations and disapproval – with deadly consequences. In Carmen, the titular protagonist battles her restrictive environment, her fickle lovers, and most of all, herself – creating a captivating drama at turns elegant, poetic and tragic.

For Pulitzer Prize-winning librettist Mark Campbell, operas strike a powerful, emotional chord in the human psyche. “The combination of music, story and the human voice can work together to create something more powerful and emotionally evocative than any one of those elements alone,” Campbell points out.

From opera’s timelessness, several conclusions emerge, at times depressing and hopeful. From the universal themes and lessons of such productions, audiences can see that humans’ past, present and (very likely) future, grapple with very similar problems. The main character of La Traviata, Violetta, strikes a chord precisely because she is caught in an impossible dilemma: should she abandon everything she has worked hard to achieve for the sake of love? Can it work? These themes transcend time.

The more things change, it seems, the more they stay the same. One may ask, why watch if all we see are the same templates and formulas throughout the ages? Yet, opera also comforts, inspires and reminds us that we’re not alone in our trials, but also gives us the hope to overcome, the fuel to drive humans forward in even the bleakest of times.

War, despair and joy.(Photo: Pat Kirk; Courtesy of San Jose Opera)

Silent Night, a bold new offering from the Arizona Opera, for example, is simultaneously hopeful, tragic and profound. Based on the real-life Christmas Truce of 1914, when opposing sides spontaneously ceased fighting and started celebrating, Silent Night addresses several time-honored questions. Are humans inherently violent?

The answer, at least as presented by the characters of Silent Night, and their real-life inspirations, is no. Soldiers, who just days before were machine-gunning one another, set aside differences to recognize each other as human beings.

Campbell believes that operas like Silent Night appeal to the better angels of our nature. “The story still engages deeply with audiences,” he says, “because people want to believe – especially during these woefully divisive times – that peace is always a possibility.”

Pulitzer-winning composer Kevin Puts agrees. “I think what Silent Night communicates is especially relevant in today's unstable world in which hate is rampant and comes from a place of ignorance and alienation,” Puts says. “The message of Silent Night is not simply that ‘war is bad,’ but more specifically that it is unsustainable once sworn enemies actually come to know each other – and discover their commonality.”

Ultimately, if a picture is worth a thousand words, perhaps an opera is worth a thousand pictures. Even if a picture allows you to see others struggling amidst adversity, opera allows you to feel it - in all its raw, unfiltered emotion.

“There are scenes in Silent Night that speak to us all,” Puts says. “A young lieutenant imagining his wife back at home, comforting a child he has never met while the war rages on; a German officer torn between his sense of duty and his sense of compassion; a young French man who risks great danger just to see his mother one last time. These are feelings and motivations we can all understand.”